5. Are You My Mother?, Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel, the longtime writer-artist of the alternative comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, broke into the mainstream in 2006 with Fun Home, a moving, literary, unsparingly honest graphic memoir about her father, a closeted man who killed himself, and her own experience coming out and the strange connection between father and daughter. Her new book focuses on her mother, a writer and actress whose career went nowhere, and Bechdel’s own rocky romantic and psychiatric history. With her trademark fearlessness, she teases out the complex nature of her bond with her mother, which is damaging and destructive but also ultimately generative and creative.